At the Art Studio, we like to put out different materials as a surprise and invitation to create. One week we had plasticine in different shades of colour. The students created animals, people and imaginary figures. They have been on display in our classroom for the last month. This Thursday we plan to send home these miniature sculptures.
Plasticine is harder to manipulate than playdough. We encouraged the students to work with smaller sections and start by warming it up in the palms of their hands (we used a plastic divider to help separate it).
The benefit of plasticine is that you can re-use it because it doesn't dry out. Also, since it's a firm substance, the children can add small decorative details to their sculptures.
You can find plasticine at Dollarama in the craft section.
As part of our morning routine. We are learning to clap out syllables in our names.
Fatima (3 syllables) Fa...ti...ma
Hassan (2 syllables) Ha...ssan
You can do this with all the names in your family or just words. Challenge them with big words! (Watermelon)
We have also been working on word blends. This is a game where I put some words on cue-cards. I breaks the words into two parts with a long pause between.
Tr.............ee
Tree!
The children put the two word-sounds together in their head to uncover the mystery word. You can play a version of this like an I-spy game. "I see a l........amp (lamp)."
Here are some snap-shots from the last two months of learning moments in the classroom. Enjoy!
Starting with the planting of our Amaryllis Bulb and then our pea plants. The students have been talking and learning about how to care for plants.
They have learned that plants need....
Sun
Water
Soil
Water is something that all the children recognize as important for plants to grow. But from this understanding, we asked them, "How do the plants get the water from the soil?"
One student mentioned roots as important. We got some non-fiction books on plants and trees from the library to help us research how plants get water. We learned that plants and flowers and trees use roots to help them 'drink' water.
However, the process of how the water moves up was still unclear. How can we prove this?!
Enter....THE CELERY EXPERIMENT
We placed two celery plants into jars filled with blue-water.
We watched over a few days as the leaves on the top of the plant began to change colour. How did that happen? It was because the blue-water moved up the celery to the top of the plant.
Today, we cut the celery open to see that the blue-water moved up small tubes inside. Taking the water up to the leaves at the top and turning them blue!
Now we have begun to compare our 'indoor' plants to the 'outside' plants. How do those plants get water?
A new tool is at the math area. It's called a scale and it measures if something is heavy, light or weighs the same.
Students have been comparing how many dinosaurs are equal to snap cubes.
They have described what they observe using math language.
"It's so much heavy!"
"Look, they are the same. I put one more in and it's the same."
"I think 2 dinosaurs are the same as 5 snap cubes."
"The dinosaurs are so many, that's why it's heavy."
Inspired by the promise of spring flowers we put out some flowers at the art studio and encouraged students to paint their own flowers or the ones on the table.
What a beautiful way to brighten up our classroom!
Evening everyone!
I know that it's been a while since I last updated the blog. I have begun tonight to finally get some posts together that I've been meaning to put up for a loooooong time.
I'm hoping I will have them all up for you by the end of the weekend.
Ms. Hammond
Yay!! Spring Time!!
